Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Collateral security, a sore point

BL 10 Mar 14

Banks’ demand for collateral for loans from small businesses is a prevalent sore point among SMEs. This was underlined when the audience applauded in response to Muhammed Kunju, CEO Crust ‘n’ Crumb, one of the CII Southern Regional Award Winners, made the point about banks demanding collateral security being a stumbling block for entrepreneurs. However, IOB was an exception and was generally supportive, he said. M Narendra, the Bank’s chairman and managing director who was on stage could be seen beaming widely in relief as he sat back with a satisfied look.

Salute to the sporting spirit

Saumil Majmudar, Co Founder and CEO, EduSports Pvt Ltd, a promoter of a company that encourages school students to take to sports, remarked on an uncanny coincidence. When the concept was new a few years back, quite a few schools had turned down the idea. But it was a school in Madurai, one run by the TVS Group that had first taken to the concept. Now, several years later, he had received a letter from Gopal Srinivasan, a key member of the TVS Group, stating that he had won the CII award.

Small towns making it big

It is often easy to discount small towns and cities when it comes to opportunities for a commercial enterprise. But it is a presumption that is easily proved wrong. B Santhanam, Chairman, CII Southern Region, pointed out that a majority of the over 200 nominees vying for the award was from the small towns and cities. There is a ground swell of innovation and enterprise that is happening in these places that is being missed in the information over load about the gloom and doom of a slow economy.

Teaching to take risks

Success is commonly highlighted but often failures precede that elusive goal. And failure teaches more lessons than success. This is an aspect in entrepreneurship that is often ignored. S Gopalakrishnan, President, CII, underscored this point when he said academic institutions need to teach entrepreneurs to take risks and handle failure. After all, more than 90 per cent of start- ups typically fail. But business schools often focus on creating managers who are taught to take no risk or low risk when running organisations. OUR BUREAU